


Inevitable

by ClomWrites



Series: Bly Drabbles [6]
Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Eventual Smut, F/F, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:07:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27610466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClomWrites/pseuds/ClomWrites
Summary: Sometimes the thing you need the most is standing right next to you.Sometimes you have to just go and get it.Sometimes it's inevitable.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie, Hannah Grose/Owen Sharma
Series: Bly Drabbles [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993213
Comments: 140
Kudos: 526





	1. How it Starts

**Author's Note:**

> Someone gave me a smut prompt and I've accidentally written 5 chapters of plot around it. **Shrugs**  
> Here is the High School AU I never thought I'd write because I prefer canon Jamie/Dani (No I'm not calling them Damie) - But this got in my head. 
> 
> M For Future chapters - possibly turning into E but for now, M. But not this chapter. This is G rated. 
> 
> PSA: Fic writers live and die on the comment box. Feel free to drop one in there, even if it's just "I would like another chapter"

If she’d bothered to think about it, Dani would have had to admit that this was probably inevitable. She had been drawn to Jamie Taylor since the first day they’d met, as 12 year olds staring at each other across a school yard.

  


School was hard, and big, and Dani just wanted to lose herself in the crowd and not be seen. But when she had to wait an hour after school for Eddie to finish his band practice, she found the sudden wasteland of the asphalt oddly comforting. She had sat and sketched in her book until a shadow loomed over her and she looked up.

  


Curly brown hair, cocked eyebrow, half a smile, overalls over a grubby t-shirt, sneakers – caked in dirt, no socks.

  


“Y’alright?”

  


The accent was different. Not what Dani was expecting in the midwest. She’d heard one kind of like it on television once. England, she thinks.

  


“Uh, yeah. Just waiting for my ride.”

  


She watches as she’s watched, knowing that Jamie’s eyes are taking her in equally. What would she see? Long blonde hair, pulled back in a functional pony tail with a rubber band. She hates them, they break her hair, but it’s all she can find and if she loses it, she can usually palm one from school without anyone noticing. Her clothes, functional, local Walmart of course. She sees Jamie’s eyes linger around her face, a cloud passing, and Dani knows she sees the shadow of the black eye that has thankfully almost faded from existence.

  


“I’m Jamie.” It’s a statement of fact.

  


Dani is polite. She’s been taught from a young age to be polite. So she stands up, dusts off her hand and offers it.

  


English takes it with another half smile. “Dani, Dani Clayton.”

  


“Your ride far off?”

  


“No, should be out any minute.”

  


Jamie nods.

  


“Do you need a lift?” Dani feels concerned. It isn’t even her lift to offer, she’s already the charity case here, but she doesn’t like the idea of Jamie being abandoned here at school.

  


“Ha, no!” Jamie scuffs the floor with her toe. “I help out the gardens sometimes. My uncle is one of the gardeners here.”

  


“Oh.” Dani doesn’t know what else to say. She’s saved by the glass doors behind her slamming open and Eddie, in all his Eddieness, stumbling down the stairs. Shoelaces are untied, shirt only half tucked in, his trombone and bags a juggle around his thin body. His hair is riot of mess, his glasses askew. Classic Eddie.

  


As though drawn by his mere presence, she sees Eddie’s mother’s car coming down the road.

  


“C’mon Dani,” Eddie hollers, continuing to stumble towards the gate.

  


She picks up her bag.

  


“What,” says Jamie, very deliberately, “is that?”

  


Dani laughs. “That’s Eddie.”

  


“Oh… is it always that….” Jamie trails off the end of her sentence.

  


Dani nods. “He’s always Eddie.” She shoulders her bag. “He’s my neighbour.” As though an explanation is owed though none has been asked for.

  


“Well, bye.”

  


Jamie gives her a wave.  
  


Dani stops on her way out. “See you at school tomorrow?” She’s pretty sure they have English together.

  


“Wouldn’t miss it.”

  


And that’s how it starts.

  


**************************

  


They’re kind of the misfits. It’s not that they’re the bad kids, in fact, they’re really some of the best behaved kids in school, Jamie notwithstanding. It’s just that they’re the kids that don’t fit anywhere else. They’re so beyond being the cool kids, or the science kids or the drama kids, or the jocks or anyone really, that it’s just them.

  


Owen, with his absolute obsession with all things cuisine, and his sick mother that people mutter about behind his back. Hannah, with her brilliance at everything, who could have belonged to any number of other groups, definitely the best scholar in the year, and yet, steadfastly one of them. Jamie, with her nonchalance, wry sense of humour, sneaking cigarettes behind the greenhouse, and eating the food that both Owen and Dani slide her, knowing she doesn’t get enough at home. There’s Dani, cheerful, resolute, determined to leave this small town on a scholarship, hiding her bruises badly under cheap concealer that doesn’t do the job. Then there’s Eddie, following Dani around like he has his whole life.

  


They love each other, this group of misfits, and for most of the time, they’ve held a delicate balance. Owen loves everyone and everyone loves Owen, but not the way that Owen loves Hannah. There’s Hannah, who is a mystery wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in a puzzle, but not quite so enigmatic that her love of Owen is a real secret. Jamie barely tolerates Eddie, who she refers to as “Dani’s puppy”

  


She’ll tolerate him for Dani though. She’d hang the moon for Dani, and they all know it, but no one says anything, least of all Dani. Dani, who Jamie calls Poppins, after her childhood / mid adolescence obsession with the movie. Dani, who is dating Eddie because somethings feel inevitable even when you don’t want them to. Dani, who watches the procession of what she calls “Jamie’s five minute girls” with clenched teeth and nails curling into her palms until they leave indents.

  


That’s them, all of them, bundled in and up together, fighting their way through the hellscape of high school to the planned escape on the other side.

  


Hannah will go Ivy League, or at least Big School. Her grades are phenomenal. Owen dreams of the Culinary Institute of America, but none of them talk about the fact he will probably get a job as a fry cook locally, unable to leave his mother.

  


Dani plans on taking any damn scholarship she can get, and running as far as she can. Eddie plans on following her. It makes Dani nauseous. He’s dropped the notion of proposing more than once and she can feel the panic welling up inside her.

  


God knows what Jamie plans to do. “Get money. Get a car. Get in. Drive. Anywhere but here Poppins, anywhere but here.” She says, lying back on the grass of the oval and staring at the clouds.

  


Dani dreams of going with her.

  


It all feels like their paths, entwined though they’ve been, will diverge and everything is set. Everything is absolutely set, until what Dani calls (after the event, when the dust has settled) “The Incident”

  


It’s a Pep Rally. Some school sanctioned sports related thing that Dani couldn’t give two hoots about, but the others are going. Eddie wants to go, he wants to drag her there. Dani doesn’t want to be at home, since her mother isn’t working tonight, so she concedes. She knows that Eddie just likes to show her off, show off that he has a girlfriend, a pretty blonde that’s with _him_. She talks Jamie into going, hoping that she can keep her from making out with curious cheerleaders under the bleachers, and that means that Owen and Hannah will come, and that means that maybe it will be ok.

  


And it is ok,  hanging around while Jamie hangs shit on American sports. 

  
“Don’t wear padding for fuckin’ Rubgy do we? You lot are well weak.” 

  


It’s fun and happy and good until it’s not. 

  


Until Dani gets up to go to the bathroom and on her way back to, some tall hulking jock blocks her way.

  


“Hey gorgous, come over here.” He’s slurring his words and very obviously drunk. It’s not uncommon for kids to sneak stuff in, and god knows what Jamie has in her hip flask shoved in her boots.

  


There’s no here to come to. Dani is literally in front of him. She ignores him, steps to one side, tries to get around, but instead he grabs her arm. Then it all goes tunnel vision and her throat closes up with fear.

  


She can see around him now, see the bleachers where her friends are, so close. She locks eyes with Jamie, screaming internally, and she’s shoved into a wall.

  


It feels like “The Incident” takes an hour. It probably takes under a minute.

  


She feels the brick against her back, and then the jock is kissing her in a way that makes her want to vomit directly into his mouth, his hands pawing at her breasts over her shirt. She tries to push him off but he’s a solid chunk of muscle and she is not. Owen gets there first, wrenching him off by the arm and shoulder. Eddie has followed, but stands to one side, his face a mess of confusion.

  


“Why are you kissing him?”

  


And then Jamie, bursts in like a small rocket, barreling past and shoving the jock in his chest, pushing him back at least half a foot. She has seen the look on Dani’s face, and she knows exactly what’s going on.

  


“What the fuck do you think you’re on about mate?”

  


And because she’s Jamie, it’s followed by one direct punch to the jaw.

  


The jock staggers backwards, and then backhands Jamie so hard that she’s thrown backwards, off her feet.

  


Dani screams.

  


There’s chaos, there’s turmoil, and all Dani can see is Jamie, holding her face and on the ground. She doesn’t know how she gets from standing to next to her but she hauls Jamie into her arms and cradles her, shaking with fear and anger and some emotions she really, really doesn’t want to name right now.

  


People appear, adults, and people are dragged away. Somehow, between Owen and Hannah and Dani, they get Jamie to her feet, and get her out of the building before questions can be asked and away, till they’re leaning against Owen’s old beat up sedan. None of them want to tempt fate for Jamie, who has a reputation at school anyway – though half undeserved. Through it all, Dani hasn’t taken her arm from around Jamie, the adrenaline still coursing through her. She’s holding her like if she lets go, they’ll both fall apart.

  


And through it all, Eddie just stands there. He follows them to the car, and stands there, mute.

And all at once, all of a sudden, Dani knows she’s done.

  


That’s how she and Eddie break up, later that evening, in a shower of tears and angry words and slammed doors.

  


And that’s how it _REALLY_ starts.

  


  



	2. Fuck off Peter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dani has backbone.

She manages to hold off until 1030 in the morning before appearing on Jamie’s doorstep. It is Saturday, and the notion that Jamie will be out of bed before midday is laughable, but she can’t wait any longer. She knocks on the door, and is surprised when it opens fairly fast, and by Jamie, who is very awake.

Jamie who is in pyjama pants and a tank top, her bare shoulders making Dani swallow convulsively. Jamie, who has a bruise, purple and angry, blooming across her cheek, making Dani gasp.

“James…” Only Dani gets to call her that, having accidentally had it roll of her tongue once when they were 14 and has been allowed to use it sparingly since.

She steps forward, and dusts her fingertips over her bruise, a move so familiar it makes her ache. A move that Jamie has done to her countless times across the years, without ever saying a word. Jamie, the only person who has ever acknowledges her bruises – in fact refuses to ignore them. Every time, a gentle brush of thumb, or the pads of her fingers, just a touch. An acknowledgment of the life Dani lives. They never talk about it. Just like they never talk about Owen’s mother, or Hannah’s scars, or the fact that Jamie gives everything they have to her little brother Mikey and has nothing for herself, going hungry more nights than not. Or that Eddie’s girlfriend is not in love with him and he knows it.

But Jamie is the only one that touches her, and now, Dani is touching her back.

Jamie sighs and opens the door, letting Dani in. The house is exactly what you’d think it would be with three men and Jamie living there. Jamie leads Dani on through, the same familiar path she’s been down for years, and into her room, tucked into the back corner of the house. It’s a little sanctuary that’s all Jamie and Dani loves it, because it’s all Jamie.

“Did you put ice on it?”

“Nope.”

“You should put ice on it.”

“Don’t have any.” Jamie flops back on her bed and sighs. “Fuck me it hurts though.”

Dani sits next to her, picks up her bruised hand and runs her thumb across the swollen knuckles. “I’ll bet.”

Jamie grins. “Worth it though.”

“Jamie,” Dani looks at her exasperatedly. “You got hurt.”

“Yeah, well that fuckknuckle had his hands on you and now he has a broken nose so, worth it.” She holds Dani’s hand back in hers and squeezes it. Dani hauls herself onto the bed, and sits up against the headboard, in her usual spot, legs crossed and lip between her teeth. She pulls her bag onto her lap and opens it.

Between her and Jamie she places a box of Ibuprofen, a bottle of Coke and a bag of Cheetos. Jamie turns her head.

“Poppins, you are the greatest person in the entire world do you know that.”

“I figured I owed you big.”

Jamie looks at her, the expression in her eyes inscrutable. “No, nothing that happened yesterday was your fault Dani.”

Dani closes her eyes. She’d like to believe that. If anyone could make that message feel true, and stick, then it would be Jamie. Deep inside though? No, it’s her fault.

Jamie grabs the bag of Cheetos and hugs them to her. “These though, food for the gods.”

Dani grins – she reckons that Jamie is as close to god as Dani is likely to find. Five minutes later, Jamie has downed the pain killers and is now happily munching on orange nonsense. Generally Jamie disdains all American food, but she has a fondness for these that Dani is more than happy to indulge. Especially today, of all days.

Dani leans her head down on Jamie’s shoulder. She should tell her about Eddie, but she doesn’t know how. She should tell her a lot of things, but she doesn’t know how. Sitting here, inhaling Jamie’s familiar scent and feeling her warmth, she just sinks into the happiness that she knows.

After awhile, Jamie puts the bag to one side and wipes the orange dust on her pants. She hooks her arm around Dani’s shoulders and rests her head on the top of the mop of blonde hair.

“How are you doing?”

Dani shrugs. “I didn’t get punched.”

Jamie squeezes her shoulder. “What happened to you isn’t ok. You don’t have to downplay that. It’s scary, it was scary”

It was scary, at the time, but now the fear has been relegated to the back of her mind somewhere. Mostly it’s just a large amount of distaste.

“Yeah. But… it’s not like it hasn’t happened before.”

The unacknowledged truth of two young women hangs between them, because things like this have happened to all of them before.

“Bloody men,” sighs Jamie.

“Hey, there’s some good ones,” Dani protests.

“Few and far between.”

“Owen!”

“I will grant you Owen.”

“You’re uncle Steve isn’t so bad…” Dani scratches her knee. “And Mikey.”

“Let’s not bring my family into this Poppins, it won’t end well.” Jamie brings a hand up to touch her cheek.

“Want me to get you some ice?” Dani will. Dani will walk down to the supermarket and buy peas, or walk to the local grocery and get an ice pack.

“Naah, bit late now, gotta do it early.”

Dani is intimately acquainted with a packet of peas and has to acknowledge the truth of the statement.

She sighs. “I have to go home. Mom wants the place clean.”

Dani’s mother has standards. Dani’s mother has expectations. Dani’s mother has a drinking problem.

“All good Poppins. I have a date with my pillow and a bag of cheetos.”

Dani leaves her, albeit reluctantly, and heads home. She’s walking up the path to her front door when she hears the voice she’d really rather not hear right now.

“Dani, dear.”

She stops. “Mrs O’Mara.” Eddie’s mom. Oh boy is she dreading this.

“Dani, come on over for a coffee will you.”

A million excuses run through her head but in the end, she just nods and makes her way across the lawn, like she has every day of her life, into next door. Judy is smiling at her, and Dani can’t tell if she’s about to be eaten alive or fed to the roses. This woman, who has been more of a mother to her than her own mother for half her life, is the one person Dani is devastated to have disappointed.

Even though it was inevitable.

Judy, who taught her how to tie her braids, and Judy who fed her casseroles and pretended that Dani’s mom was her friend and who always had a warm hug and a space at her table for Dani. Judy, who is looking at her with a knowing look, as they walk into the kitchen.

Dani is relieved that Eddie is nowhere to be seen.

“Sit down, sit down. Cocoa or coffee?”

“Coffee please.”

Judy busies herself as Dani’s anxiety rises like the mercury of a thermometer. By the time there’s a warm cup of coffee, made perfectly to her tastes, sitting in front of her, she’s trembling.

“So, Eddie is refusing to come out of his room.” Judy takes a sip of her coffee and gives Dani a pointed look.

Dani grasps her hands and stares down at them, down at her lap, heat suffusing her cheeks.

“He did tell me why, said you’d broken up.”

Dani can’t look up, can’t speak. She wants to be anywhere but here, but specifically, back on Jamie’s bed, with her head on Jamie’s shoulder, and safe and warm and definitely not here.

“Have you?”

Dani looks up, because she has no choice. “Yes ma’am.”

“And that’s what you want? It’s not some little fight you can just smooth over?”

Dani, if possible, goes redder. “No ma’am. I mean, yes, it’s what I want.”

Judy takes another sip of her coffee and regards her.

“Well then he’s just going to have to get himself together and move on then isn’t he.”

Dani doesn’t know what response she was expecting, a thousand nightmare scenarios racing through her brain. It wasn’t this though. Her eyes fly to Judy’s. She lets out a little of her held breath. She feels like, at the least, she owes Judy some kind of explanation.

“I… I didn’t want to hurt him.”

Judy shrugs pragmatically. “Things end. You’re kids, and Dani, you don’t owe him a relationship just because you live next door.”

Dani is speechless. Exactly how long has everyone seen inside her skull?

“I… I’m….”

Judy reaches out and pats her hand. “Dani dear, you will always be welcome in this house. You’re the only daughter I never had, and I’m not about to give that up. You and Eddie will sort out your friendship over time, but I just want you to know that I understand. He’ll sulk for awhile because boys do that and then he’ll get over it. Don’t let that get in the way of you living your life ok?”

Dani is grateful, so very grateful, and she doesn’t know how to express that. All she can do is whisper “thank you” under her breath and blink away the hot tears that are threatening to fall.

The conversation normalises then, back to school and homework and friends. It doesn’t last long, but it lasts long enough for Dani to stop trembling and give Judy a grateful hug.

She goes home, without having to see Eddie who is presumably sulking in his room. She cleans the house in a brain fog of fatigue, and emotional drain, and a fair swathe of confusion. She does her homework in the same frame of mind and frankly, nothing goes in, but at least it’s done.

By Monday at school, she’s pretty much gathered herself back to normality. She’s good at that, bury and proceed, bury and proceed. She sees Jamie briefly in homeroom, and then has Chemistry with Owen. Owen and Eddie.

Eddie ignores her.

It’s at lunchtime when, what Dani will later call “The Incident: Part 2,” happens.

She’s putting her stuff away in her locker when she feels a shove from the side and looks up to see Peter Quint, in his jock magnificence and broken nose, taped down, glaring at her from a height.

She shivers, remembering his hands on her days before. She takes a step back.

“Your fucking girlfriend is going to pay for this.”

Dani freezes, and then, something inside her snaps. Instead of melting her like a icicle, the fear runs up her spine and seizes, forcing her ramrod straight.

“What. Did. You. Just. Say.”

Peter is startled by the sudden change in her demeanor but it doesn’t make him back off.

“You fucking dykes will pay for this. My nose is broken! Coach won’t start me for two weeks. I’ll make her fucking pay for this.”

There is a crowd gathering, but Dani doesn’t care.

“You know what, you won’t,” she counters confidently. “Because if you say a single word to her, or lay a single finger on her, harm a single hair on her head, I will make your life a living hell.” She takes a deep breath.

“You are a coward Peter Quint, a fucking rapist coward, and when you put your hands on me, you made her angry. You don’t want to make Jamie angry. So if I were you, I’d walk away now, because otherwise I will tell everyone what you did to me, and I will tell everyone what you did to Rebecca Jessel, and I will make sure you never touch another soul in this town again.”

She sees his face pale and knows that she’s hit home in more than one place. The adrenaline is coursing through her but instead of fear she feels, if nothing else, exhilaration. The crowd around is murmuring, people are saying things but all Dani can hear is the high pitched whine in her ears. He makes a menacing step towards her. One, two jocks appear, pull Peter back into the crowd, and Dani turns around, slams her locker closed, and goes to find Hannah for lunch. She should feel sick. She should feel frightened. She doesn’t. She feels liberated.

The rest of the day passes in a blur, and she’s heading towards the bus when she’s caught again by the elbow. Frankly, she’s really, really tired of people grabbing her. She wrenches it out and turns to yell, and finds herself staring at Eddie.

Now she’s really mad. And tired.

“Go away Eddie.”

“We need to talk.”

“We really don’t.”

“I’m not trying to change your mind, I -”

Dani growls “Good because I’m not going to.”

He grabs her by the elbow again and before she can wrench out, he’s pulled her over to the fence, away from everyone else and next to a huge tree. “What the fuck Eddie.”

“What the fuck Eddie? How about what the fuck Dani? One day, one day we’ve been broken up and you’re already fucking Jamie. One fucking day.”

Dani’s jaw drops open. What. She shuts it and breathes in, furious. “Firstly, not that it’s any of your business, but I’m not. Secondly… what the hell are you talking about?” She hisses it out, grinding her teeth.

“Lunch. Quint. Your ‘girlfriend’”

“Oh my god.” Dani rolls her eyes. “You are such a fucking walnut Eddie O’Mara”

He glares at her, but she sees the pain under the glare.

“Peter Quint is a moron Eddie. And I’m starting to think you’re one too. If you’re going to believe everything everyone says, believe this: I don’t want to be anyone’s girlfriend ok.”

She walks away, angry and tired and frustrated. And very aware that she’s just told an outrageous lie.

She does not sleep well that night, tossing and turning, and wakes up feeling like she’s got a head cold even though she doesn’t. She stumbles through the first half of school, and barely makes it to lunch where she tracks down her friends in a corner of the library. Warm days find them on any patch of grass they can lay claim to, and cold days, like today, they bunker down in beanbags in the library.

Owen and Hannah are there before her, Owen expounding on the chemical beauty of a perfect meringue while Hannah listens fondly. Eddie is nowhere to be seen, for which Dani is very grateful. Jamie isn’t either, for which Dani is sad.

She dumps herself into a bag and groans, laying her head back.

“Long week?” Hannah sounds sympathetic.

“Yep. And it’s Tuesday.” She stares up at the ceiling, contemplating the patterns on the tiles, until Jamie appears in her periphery and then drops into the beanbag directly next to her.

“You look done in Poppins,” she says after a moment.

“Yeah, well I didn’t sleep so well.”

Jamie leans in and looks in her eyes, checking for honesty. Dani knows full well that she can’t hide shit from Jamie, so she just lets her.

“I’m fine Jay, just tired.”

“Hmm.”

They settle in comfortably. Owen and Hannah seem to be lost in conversation again, and every now and then Dani hears a word like “blancmange” and decides she doesn’t need to butt in.

She feels Jamie’s hand on her arm, looks at her. “So, I hear you threatened to cut off Peter Quint’s bollocks in front of the whole school.”

Dani raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, that never happened.”

Jamie laughs, “Pity. I’d love to see it.” Her face softens. “You did get into it with him though, I know that much.”

It’s school, there’s no such thing as a secret.

“He started it.”

Jamie’s hand grabs hers, thumb soothing. “Hey, Poppins, I’m all for it. I’ll hold the wanker down for you if you like, I just don’t like people hassling you.”

They don’t normally. For her whole life Dani has been very good at keeping her head down, ducking out of the way and just keeping to the corners. She’s the good girl, the quiet girl, the one that can be pushed around.

Except that last bit has never been true.

“I don’t think he’ll do it again,” Dani says, leaning back and closing her eyes. Her hand is still loosely laced with Jamie’s and it’s making her heart race. Fuck, she hopes it isn’t making her palm sweat. “He wasn’t expecting me to push back.”

“He’d better not.”

Jamie squeezes her fingers and they sit in companionable quiet for a few more minutes before Jamie squeezes her hand again. Then she feels Jamie lean in, voice low.

“So, Poppins. When were you planning on telling me we were dating?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't go expecting big plot twists from this, it's actually just a fluff love smut piece that got expanded into 5 chapters. 
> 
> Spoiler: Peter is a coward and now that someone has stood up to him, he'll probably fuck off. Maybe. Not sure. This fic appears to be writing itself with my fingers. 
> 
> Anyway, the comments have been giving me life. Please. Please add more. 
> 
> Also: Likely daily updates till its done.


	3. The Book of Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which more things are said than anyone expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I'm a bit late posting this. If it helps, i've written the next chapter already, so it's going to keep being posted.  
> I had to play around with tenses. I've read over it eight times and I think I caught them all but if i've missed one - I humbly apologise. I think you'll find this chapter more than makes up for it. 
> 
> Comments - they're the new currency. Please, please drop one in the box. Pretty Please.

Jamie likes to tease. She likes a good joke and she’s damn good at them. She saves her jokes for her friends. With everyone else she has a reputation for being a bit mouthy. Mostly, like Dani and Owen and Hannah, she avoids the crowds at school and they keep to themselves, but when pushed, Jamie has a tongue that cuts like acid.

That gentle teasing side that she has though, it’s witty and brilliant and she likes to personalise it for each of her friends, especially Dani.

For the last month, she has been well nigh relentless. The rumours at school have quietened down a lot. Everyone knows that Jamie is gay, and that she’s apparently dating Dani is only really news for ten seconds before something else happens. Eddie now scowls whenever he sees them, which isn’t often. He’s abandoned them for his other group of friends, the DnD/Nerd group, and Dani finds that she misses him.

He’s been there her whole life, and she does miss him. She suspects she’s the only one.

The fact that she and Jamie are not, in point of fact, dating is seemingly irrelevant to everyone except them. It also doesn’t stop Jamie from pushing the joke to it’s furthest acceptable limits. Dani would be mad except Jamie has a preternatural ability to know exactly where the line is and not step over it.

Still, a month of having someone throw their arm around her shoulder and grin with “Hey girlfriend,” and kisses on the cheek and grandiose offers to “carry her books” has Dani incredibly frustrated.

The little jokes are spaced just enough apart as to not be overwhelming or, even worse, harassing. In fact, Dani knows that all she needs to do is say one word and the whole thing would stop. It’s not even like it bothers her. It always bothered her with Eddie. It always bothered her with the other boys, interest sparked by a pair of blue eyes, a growing chest and a barrel full of hormones, would attempt to persuade her in one way or another. When Jamie does it, it just makes her ache for something she’s wanted for so long she doesn’t even know when it started. She wants this all the time, not just occasionally as a joke – she wants Jamie’s arm around her, and to burrow into her.

It would also probably help if she didn’t spend a considerable amount of time wondering what it would be like to kiss her.

Kissing has never been of much interest to Dani, too much tongue and saliva, it just seemed messy. But she wonders what Jamie’s lips would feel like against her own, and thinks it might be worth a second shot.

Before breaking up with Eddie these thoughts had been permanently locked in the Do Not Open box of her brain. They were too much of a betrayal to everyone around her, and so far out of the realm of possibility that it was just painful to even let them creep in. Dani was a master at compartmentalising.

  
Now, now they were being placed in front of her like a long, cold, iced tea on a hot summers day.

It was extremely unfair.

Her days were more free now, now that she wasn’t required to spend so much time with Eddie. She really did miss him, his earnest nerdy joy and gentle care. He had loved Dani and had never treated her badly, but the missing him was more than made up by the fact she now could spend a lot more time with Jamie.

Avoiding her mother was a habit so ingrained in Dani that it was done without thinking now. As long as the house was clean, the laundry was done, Dani’s mother didn’t bother her with her daughter at all. There was always food in the kitchen, and a hired gardener to keep the outside up to scratch. Dani’s mother believed in keeping up appearances after all. That didn’t mean she needed to be anywhere or pay attention to her daughter, which gave Dani plenty of freedom.

Instead of studying at Eddie’s as she’d done half her life, she finds herself gravitating to wherever Jamie is and studying there instead. She stakes out a little corner of the greenhouse at school, on an upturned crate, and churns out Calculus equations while Jamie gets her hands dirty. Jamie stops by, flashes one of those killer smiles at Dani, occasionally winks at her, and Dani is so happy she can’t quite believe it’s real. She studies in the library, leaning up against Jamie, who’s buried in whatever book she happens to be carrying with her that day.

If not at school, Jamie prefers to hang out at Dani’s house, because at least there’s food and someone has vacuumed the carpet in the last century. The sight of Jamie, lying back on her floor with feet propped up on the bed, tossing a rubber ball in the air and catching it while Dani tried to study on the bed, has become more and more common.

The combination of the jokes and the increased exposure to Jamie is causing her more anguish than it’s worth. They’re almost inseparable now. Dani knows why everyone thinks they;re dating because to all intents and purposes they seem to be, except for the bit where they’re not.

Except for times like on Wednesday when she’d rounded the corner to the Greenhouse and had seen Jamie nonchalantly leaning up against the side, talking to Hattie Smith from the Hockey team. Everyone knew Hattie liked girls. Everyone knew Jamie liked girls. And even from a distance, Dani could see that Jamie had that smile on, the one that was half crooked and made Dani melt like a summer ice cream.

Jealousy had curdled in her veins.

Except she had no right.

They weren’t dating, they weren’t girlfriends, they weren’t together and if Jamie didn’t fucking stop joking about it, Dani was going to lose her mind.

“I’m thinking maybe a van?” Dani blinks. Jamie is on her floor, again, feet up on the bed, again. Dani was attempting to make some sense of Organic Chemistry, which she normally loved, but her brain had drifted into Wednesday again and now she was simultaneously trying to push down the tide of annoyance the memory bought and also catch up with whatever Jamie had just delivered to her ears. After a few seconds she had to give in and admit that she’d missed the contextual sentence and wasn’t going to be any less lost.

“Sorry?”

Jamie sits up, pulling her legs down and crossing them. “For my road trip. I think a van might be good. I could throw a mattress in the back, useful if you have nowhere to sleep for the night.”

Dani nods. “Also sounds an excellent way to be murdered and kidnapped.”

Jamie rolls her eyes. “Give me some credit yeah.” She throws Dani a look. “Where were you anyway, you looked a million miles away.”

Not a million miles, just two days ago.

“Um, Organic Chemistry.”

Jamie groans again and flops back on the floor. “Poppins, come on. It’s Friday night. You have the whole weekend to do this shit.”

“Yeah, but if I get it done now, then I have the whole weekend to hang out with you.” Dani smiles sweetly and gets a thrill from the answering smile she got back.

“Can’t have me all weekend. I promised Mikey I’d take him to the park tomorrow.”

“Can I come?”

“You want to hang out with a ten year old?”

It was Dani’s turn to roll her eyes. “I want to hang out with you and Mikey. I like your little brother.”

“Sure, come along.” Jamie stretches her arms up, pulling her t-shirt up and baring her navel, making Dani avert her eyes as the temperature in her brain shoots up. “It’s what a good girlfriend would do anyway.”

Dani bites her lip. It was just a joke, another little joke. Jamie had that same cheeky grin that she always had. But she also still had her abs on view and Dani’s limbic system was insisting that she should consider running her tongue over that landscape to see if it tasted as good as it looked and right then, right there, it got too much.

“Could you stop that please.” It comes out a lot sharper and a lot grumpier than she intends.

Jamie sits up fast, clearly taken aback. She raises an eyebrow. “Whoah, just a joke Poppins. It’s just a joke.”

“Yeah well it’s not funny.” Dani dumps her homework on the bed, pulls her knees to her chest and hugs them.

Jamie holds her hands up. “Geez, ok, sorry. I won’t do it again. I didn’t realise it upset you.”

Dani says nothing. The feelings churning inside her seemed to want to fly out volcanically and she knows if she opens her mouth, it's all going to come pouring out. 

“Who knew dating me would be so awful,” Jamie jokes, and then stops because the look Dani gives her, through narrowed eyes, is one that warns her if she goes any further, it will not go well. “Or is it just dating a girl you object to.”

Dani is stunned.

Jamie is standing now, brushing off her pants and definitely looking like she’s about to bolt. Dani reaches out and grabbing her by the wrist, holding loosely.

“Don’t be an asshole Jamie you know that wasn’t what I meant.”

“Wasn’t it?”

Jamie looks at her, really looks at her, and Dani sees the hurt floating in her eyes. Hurt that Dani put there. Even if she doesn’t tell Jamie the truth she can’t let this narrative be the one that gets past.

“When have I ever show the slightest bit of care about your sexuality?” She asks gently. “When Jay?”

Jamie deflates a little then, her anger ebbing obviously. She sits on the side of the bed, elbows on knees and contemplates her own feet. “Just me then?”

Dani looks at her, really looks at her, and sees. She’s always been the one who could penetrate the shell around Jamie. She’s always been the one Jamie can be vulnerable with, but right now, all she can see is Jamie desperately trying to protect herself. It’s as clear as day.

“Jamie.”

“Ok Ok. Sorry. I’ll stop.” She reaches over and squeezes Dani’s hand. “I’ll stop joking around with you.”

Dani sighs. “It’s ok. It’s just a joke.”

“Yeah, but it makes you uncomfortable. I don’t want to do that.” Jamie toes the carpet. “But… Dani….”

Dani’s heart stops in her throat. While its stuck there, it begins pounding so hard she can hear it. 

“Will… will you at least tell me why it makes you uncomfortable?” 

Dani knows then, that this is a moment. This is one of those things you normally only recognise in hindsight but now she can see it stretched out in front of her and the noise in her head intensifies. There is a look on Jamie’s face, and Dani hopes she's reading it right. She looks scared, and hopeful, and confused, and something else and most of all, she’s asking.  And here is Jamie, making herself vulnerable.

They don’t ask. They don’t ask each other deep and hard stuff, they just sit and be there when it comes out. They don’t push, they never have, Jamie least of all.

“I like my life boring,” she always says. 

But she’ s asking .  And because she’ s asking , for once in her life: Dani has to answer. 

“Because…” Dani begins. She swallows. Blinks. “Because I don’t know if it’s real for you like it is for me. And I can’t play along any more if it isn’t.” 

She feels like her skin might rip off. Never before has she torn her heart out of her chest (or throat as the case may be), and left it beating before someone else. Never has she reached out and asked for what she wanted. And the silence that hangs between them, full of the promise of fulfillment or utter devastation, is frightening. 

Then she feels Jamie’s hand tighten on hers, gripping. It’s trembling, and Dani looks up, into Jamie’s beautiful, beautiful face. There are tears shimmering in her eyes and in the six years they’ve been friends Dani has seen that happen exactly no times. 

“Fuck, Jamie, I’m sorry.” She reaches out, cups her cheeks, brushes her thumbs under the tears. “I… it’s ok, forget I said that. I’m sorry. I ruined it. I’m sorry.” 

She hears Jamie let out a  very slight sob, and grab her gently by the wrist, holding Dani’s hand to her face. 

“Do you mean it?” Jamie whispers. She looks so hopeful Dani thinks she might shatter. 

“Yeah. Yeah I mean it.” She does, with her whole heart. The one that is still beating on the covers in front of Jamie. 

‘ _Pick it up’_ Her internal monologue whispers. ‘ _Pick it up and keep it’_. 

And Jamie does just that. 

She pulls Dani in by the back of the head until their foreheads are leaning together. She runs a thumb along Dani’s bottom lip, and suddenly Dani’s head is back on fire again, for reasons that are absolutely, positively not fear. 

And then Jamie’s lips are on hers. 

God they’re soft, and warm, and they don’t push. They brush along, tilting until their mouths are gently sealed together and somewhere, by instinct, Dani opens hers. 

The kiss is the single most erotic, incredible, sensational thing that has ever happened to her, and when it’s over, all she wants to do is do it again, over and over and over. 

Oh. Yeah. Maybe she’ll give this kissing thing another go. 

Jamie pulls her into her arms, wrapping around her tightly like she’s afraid Dani might bolt. Dani engulfs her  right  back, rubbing her hand up and down Jamie’s back soothingly while the scent of Jamie’s perfume lingers on her. 

Eventually Jamie pulls back,  smiling shyly. 

“So I guess this is a thing then.” 

  
Dani shakes her head, leans in and puts her head on Jamie’s shoulder. “Yes. It’s definitely a thing.” 

“And it’s a thing that you want?” 

God, has Jamie ever actually sounded this uncertain before? She’s the most self-confident person Dani knows. Dani’s heart melts a little more. 

“It’s a thing I want very much.” 

Sitting on her knees is cramping them, so Dani pulls Jamie down until they’re lying on her bed, side by side, staring at each other. She lets her hand trail up and down Jamie’s arm. 

“You want it too?” Jamie isn’t the only one who needs some reassurance here. 

Jamie laughs, short and sharp. “Only since forever.” 

It is a day for saying things previously left unsaid apparently. 

“Since forever?” 

“Don’t pretend you didn’t already know that.” 

Dani holds her close, kisses her arm, her cheek, her nose, and then lightly, softly, her lips. She pulls back again, not quite believe this is real. 

“We’re idiots,” she sighs. 

Jamie laughs again, but more gently this time. “Speak for yourself Poppins. I’m actually quite smart.” 

Dani smacks her upper arm lightly. 

They look at each other, just staring, both a bit dreamy and like if they move, the fragile moment may break around them.  Eventually Dani can’t handle it any more and tangles their fingers together. Either they need to talk some more or kiss because everything else seems like too much. 

She really wants to kiss Jamie, so she starts talking instead. 

“So.. um.. if this is a thing… what… thing is it exactly?” 

Jamie gives her a look with that cocked eyebrow she does so well. “I think our English teacher just had a seizure.” 

Dani  glares at her. 

Jamie lifts her hands to Dani’s hair, and tucks a strand behind her ear, lingering to trace her finger tips over the shell in a way that leaves Dani absolute putty in her hands,  glare fading off her face. 

“It’s whatever you want it to be Dan. Whatever you need it to be. I don’t want to push you.” 

Much like ‘James’, ‘Dan’ is reserved for really special moments and Dani doesn’t know how she can get much more puddle like without soaking into the covers. 

“I… I want you.” 

“You have me. You always had me.” 

Dani leans in now, kisses her again, brushing their lips together because she can’t not. Jamie’s hands slip to her waist and just gently hold her th rough the kiss. It’s not fast, it’s not furious, it’s sweet and it’s slow and it’s everything Dani  thinks a kiss should be. 

When it’s over, it’s all she can do not to do not to fling herself on Jamie and demand more kisses.  She would, but, there’s something more she has to say. 

“It’s just… I can’t…” She doesn’t know how to put this in words. 

She feels Jamie tense under her hands. They’re lying so close now, pressed to each other, and every movement is magnified. 

“It’s ok. We don’t have to do anything or say anything, we can take things slow.” 

Dani needs that, she does, but it also was not what she was trying to say. 

“No, it’s ok. I want this, with you. I want to be with you.” She brings her finger tip to trace down Jamie’s perfect nose. “I just can’t… I can’t be a five minute girl.” 

Jamie’s face scrunches up in confusion. “A what?” 

Dani sighs. “One of your girls, the ones you see for five minutes and then never see again. I can’t be that Jamie, it would break me.  And I need to be it for you and I need you to be it for me. I don’t think I can share you.” 

The things they’re actually admitting today make Dani dizzy. Who knew that  so many revelations could play merry havoc with your blood pressure. 

What she doesn’t expect, is Jamie to burst out laughing. In fact she’s so offended by Jamie’s sudden descent into giggles that she pulls away from her, glaring  again . 

“Hey!” 

“Sorry, sorry,” Jamie pulls her back, and wipes away an honest to god tear of laughter. Dani finds her annoyance both settling and rising at the same time, in the impossible way that only Jamie could inspire in her. “Sorry. It’s just… Poppins…” 

Dani glares at her again.  It’s getting to be habit forming. 

“First – ‘five minute girl’ is genius, and second, as if you ever could be.” Jamie cocks her head, looks down at her with affection, warmth. “Dani. I’ve been in love with you since I was twelve.” 

Dani inhales sharply, her world spinning.  She knows she heard Jamie right. She knows she did. She pulls  her in, nose to nose, forehead to forehead, shaking. “Say that again.” 

Jamie smiles against her cheek. “I love you.” 

“Oh…” she nuzzles down, cleaving herself to Jamie, trying to eliminate every atom of space between them. She feels Jamie’s fingers gently rake through her hair, holding her. “I love you too,” she mumbles against Jamie’s shoulder. 

Jamie pulls back. “Uh, do you mind saying that again? It was a bit … garbled.” She looks uncertain again and Dani finds it endearing. She’s pretty sure Jamie heard her. 

“I said I love you too.” 

Jamie’s smile could light up the world.  Dani leans in and kisses her again, tracing her tongue lightly over Jamie’s upper lip and gasping when she feels the motion returned. 

Jamie pulls back, her eyes darting all over Dani’s face like she’s memorising her, like she’s never really seen her before. 

“You’re enough for me Dani. You’re more than enough for me. I don’t need anything or anyone else. Ok? I’m yours.” 

Dani reaches in then, kisses her, pouring all of her feelings into it. She feels Jamie’s hands slip around her back, pulling her close, and she knows she doesn’t have to say that it’s reciprocated out loud. 

She’s Jamie’s. She always has been. 


	4. Push me into heaven, before I go to Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dani learns many new things. 
> 
> NSFW   
> Absolutely M rated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot promise to update the last chapter tomorrow because life is running away with me, but it'll be up in the next 2 days. 
> 
> Then I have a slightly longer fic in mind because, apparently, Dani and Jamie no longer just inhabit real estate in my head but own the whole of it - definitely the limbic system.

It ’s  impossible to keep it a secret from Owen and Hannah. Dani reckon s it t akes them about ten seconds on Monday morning to cotton on. 

They try to hide it, really. They stand at least a foot apart, as they both arrive a bit early, staring at each other. Dani wants to go to her, grab her, kiss her. Her brain is back on Saturday afternoon, where she learned that  the gentle weight of Jamie pressing her into the bed is delicious in ways she’d never accounted for. She’s learned that Jamie’s fingers skimming up her ribs, to the edge of her bra, makes Dani tense with anticipation – and a want for more. They had kept it relatively light – it was new, exhilarating, and they were both treating it with the due care it’s owed. 

But god Dani doesn’t want to keep her hands of f Jamie. 

So they wait on Owen and Hannah, like they always do. They talk lightly about their weekend like they hadn’t just spent every spare second wrapped in each other. They talk about the day to come, and the classes they have, and Dani tries to pretend that Jamie’s eyes aren’t burning into her. 

Hannah clearly figures it out as soon as she arrives. She sees them, glances at one, then the other, and smiles. Hannah’s smiles are always gentle, always light up her eyes, and have their own special characters. You need to truly know Hannah to read each smile, but they’ve all been friends for years. This smile, that she gives them on a Monday morning, is knowing. 

Jamie cracks first. 

“Shut up.” 

“I haven’t said anything darling.” Hannah kisses Jamie’s cheek and smiles, fondly this time. “But I’m happy for you. I’m happy for you both.” 

Dani looks up at the sky,  sighing . “Are we that obvious?”

“Probably only to me.” Hannah gives that same fond smile to Dani. “Also it might help if you stand a bit closer to each other. You’re usually attached at the hip, so it was a bit of a giveaway. You didn’t look mad at each other.” 

Well. That backfired. 

They stop trying so hard but hold off on PDA. Owen arrives five minutes later and they all wander in, heading to the lockers. They’re waiting by his locker last, because it’s so chaotic that he always has to put the eight things that have fallen out back in before he’s done. He slams his locker, looks at Jamie, looks at Dani, and grins. 

“About time.” 

This time it’s Jamie who throws her hands in the air and makes a noise of frustration. “Seriously?” 

Hannah loops an arm around her shoulders. “We’re your best friends love. We know you. And we’re happy.” 

T hey stop trying to hide it at school.  It seems pointless. Some people stare at their held hands. No one really says anything. The school has a no tolerance policy on discrimination and people are smart enough not to push it. They do get a few snickers from the obvious selection of immature teen boys.  Eddie sees them, scowls, scampers away. Dani does feel a bit of a pang of regret at that, not because she isn’t  overwhelmingly happy but because she would have preferred to do this without hurting Eddie. As for everyone else? Dani and Jamie don’t care, they’re in love. 

Dating Jamie is phenomenally easy. For starters it changes almost nothing about their day to day life. They get the same amount of time for each other as they had previously, which was to say every spare moment they could carve out. 

The world still went on around them. Dani still had expectations at home and a mother to avoid. School happened,  plans for the future evolved , work happened, Jamie’s family and gardening and general ability to get up to mischief still happened, swirling around them. The only real changes were that, firstly, for the first time in her life, Dani was happy. She was blissfully,  irresistibly , irrepressibly happy. 

Every touch, every time Jamie reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear, every smile and every kiss just added incrementally t o  her happiness until she was floating.

They steal every moment they can, and for the first time in her life, Dani skips class to make out behind the gym. Even worse, it’s her idea – not that Jamie says a word against it. No matter how much she tries to calm it down, tries to keep some self control, Dani is  increasingly  struggling to keep her hands off Jamie. 

W hat is absolutely the second change in her life,  is that Dani now  _gets_ it. The whole shebang that had completely eluded her previously. The want, the need, and the teenage hormonal lust that was now raging through her in a torrent –  she understands. Apparently all the bad TV specials and books weren’t just making it up. And apparently, she isn’t broken – a thought that had definitely occurred to her in the past. 

The idea that Jamie, sexy, hungry, not-really-bad-but-pretends-to-be-the-bad-girl Jamie had more self control than her was a bit galling to be honest. Not that either of them had much, but Jamie seemed more able to pull away, to calm her breathing and to walk back to class like she hadn’t just had her hand on Dani’s ass and her lips on Dani’s neck, teasing tongue and hot whispers. 

Dani forces herself to make sure the necessities in her life are  cared for . She does her homework with diligence – her grades are good, as long as she maintains them, she should get a scholarship out. She keeps the house as her mother expects, because the happier her mother is, the more they can avoid each other and the less chance there is that Dani will suddenly be kept from Jamie. She makes sure the structure of their lives is safe so that she can keep doing what they’re doing because being parted from Jamie makes Dani feel like she can’t breath in enough air to survive. 

Dani knew about teenage obsession, she just never thought she’d fall victim to it. 

Jamie finds it endearing. Dani knows this, because Jamie has told her so while chuckling, and hugging her, and Dani blushes to the roots of her hair. 

“It’s a good thing my girlfriend wants to kiss me Poppins. It wouldn’t be much fun if she didn’t.” 

It’s not the kissing that’s the issue. It’s the stopping. Dani doesn’t want to. She’s discovering things that she delights in. Like that if she kisses Jamie just under her ear, and chases the kiss with the tip of her tongue, Jamie shivers. That the strip of skin in the small of Jamie’s back is baby soft, and Dani can run her fingers along it for ever, just lying, staring at Jamie . 

That just burying her face in the crook Jamie’s neck and being cradled in her arms makes Dani feel more at peace than she ever has in her entire life.  It’s a whole goddamn cliché. 

Like right now, with Jamie half on top of her, on Dani’s bed, Dani feels like she can’t get close enough. She grips the back of Jamie’s neck, and runs her fingers through the short hairs there, gasping as Jamie’s tongue dips into her mouth again, tracing the edge of her teeth. Hot, heady desire spreads through her and she feels Jamie’s fingers playing at the edge of her shirt. They slip under, fanning across her stomach making Dani gasp again. 

Jamie leaves her lips, and Dani chases them, causing a chuckle. But then, then those lips are on her jaw, nipping gently, moving down to her neck. And Jamie’s hand is moving up, up, tracing the delicate bone of her rib line.  This time she doesn’t stop, and it’s a step further, it’s new. Her hand covers Dani’s breast, thumbing her nipple through the thin cotton of her bra. 

Jamie is so good at this, setting her very blood on fire and then soothing it. Right now though, Dani doesn’t feel even remotely soothed. All she can feel is the hot, heavy want seeping through her bones. She wants Jamie naked, she wants Jamie on top of her, underneath her. She wants to run her tongue down the valley between Jamie’s breasts and make her cry out Dani’s name. 

Dani grabs the back of Jamie’s jeans at the waist, pulling her in, arching her neck to give Jamie’s wicked lips and talented tongue more room to work. They both groan, and Dani arches again. Jamie’s knee is between hers, her thigh now pushing down on the seam of Dani’s jeans. 

Fuck. 

Dani moves her hips, desperate for the contact, grabs the back of Jamie’s shirt, pulls their mouths back together. Jamie’s hand keeps caressing, keeps moving back to taunt that already straining nipple. God, when had her nipples been this sensitive? 

Dani whimpers, wanting to be  impossibly  closer, her body moving under Jamie’s as the sensations rocket through her. She’s never been like this, she’s never felt like this before, like every nerve ending is on fire. Desperate, she grabs Jamie’s hips, pulling them  in again, bearing down on it . She needs  something intangible , she needs … she needs.  Jamie’s mouth moves down, again, trailing down her neck and on to her collarbone, sucking gently. The pin points of pain make Dani gasp again, as Jamie’s thigh slides against her with the undulating movement of their bodies. 

Her hips jerk erratically, and she shudders, and then, something inside her gives way. A tsunami of pleasure spreads out from her centre, making her whimper and shake, gripping on to Jamie like a life preserver until, slowly, it ebbs away and she’s left gasping. 

She slowly loosens her grip on Jamie, aware that she’s holding on way too tight, and Jamie leans up on one elbow, her hand now on Dani’s stomach as she looks down on her. The expression she’s wearing is not one Dani has seen before. 

“Blimey, Dani… did you just…” Jamie swallows. “Did… did that just happen?” 

It is then, as the fog in Dani’s brain clears a little, that she realises just what Jamie means. And she also realises what just happened. 

She buries her face in  Jamie’s shirt, blushing so hard she must look like a tomato. It takes her a little bit to eventually come out, still embarrassed beyond belief. Jamie is lying here, holding her, head propped up on one hand and grinning at her. 

She gently cradles her cheek and rubs a thumb over the arch of her cheekbone. “You ok?” 

Dani nods, fighting the urge to bury her face back again. “Sorry.” 

Jamie arches an eyebrow. “Sorry? For what?” 

Dani blushes again. “You know…” she waves her hand in the vague direction of their bottom halves. 

Jamie grins. “I don’t think that’s anything you need to be sorry for Poppins. Pretty sure I should be thanking you.” 

Dani groans and then does bury her head back in Jamie’s shirt, inhaling the familiar scent and listening to the rhythmic thudding underneath. Jamie’s hand gently cradles the back of her head and holds her. 

After a few minutes, she hears Jamie’s low, gentle voice. “You ever coming out of there again?” 

Dani  buries a little harder , but Jamie is having none of it, carefully easing her away. 

“Poppins… Dan… look at me.” 

Dani looks up. She looks worried, lovingly so, but still worried. 

“You know that was really hot right?” 

Dani blushes again. “I’ve… I’ve never… done that before.” 

Jamie gives her a look. “Please don’t make me think about you with other people.” 

Dani shakes her head. “No. I mean… that’s never _happened_ before.” 

It takes Jamie a moment to pick up on what she means, and then her eyes go wide. “Wait… never?” 

“Never,” Dani mumbles, nuzzling back into Jamie’s shoulder as Jamie falls back onto the bed, cradling her, looking a bit stunned. 

“Blimey Dan.. not even, y’know, with yourself?” 

Dani decides that Jamie’s shirt is her new home and she’s never coming out. “No… I.. never wanted to, it never… nothing really happened, and I … I thought I just didn’t want that stuff.” 

Whenever she’s with Jamie, Dani tries very hard not to mention her time with Eddie. Not because Jamie has ever indicated that it’s a problem, but mostly because Dani doesn’t want to bring anyone else into what they have, not even in conversation. Jamie knows that Dani and Eddie never went too far, the convenient excuse that Dani was a good girl and Eddie, despite everything, was endlessly respectful. So Jamie knows this is new for her, but Dani still finds it hard to talk about it all. The newness of her want, the rawness of her feelings, it’s all a bit much.  It’s not like Dani has ever really had to talk about sex. 

Jamie lets her lay there, gently brushing a hand up and down Dani’s back, letting the moment settle itself. 

“You know I’ll never ask you to do something you’re not ready for,” she kisses the top of Dani’s head. “You can always tell me to back off.” 

Dani traces her finger over the delicate arch of Jamie’s collarbone, where it meets her sternum. Sometimes she can’t believe that this slender woman carries so much strength in her. 

“I know. I trust you.” 

She always has. 

She laces their fingers together and Jamie brings their joined hands up to kiss them. “Still really fucking hot though.” 

Dani laughs. She doesn’t know when it began, Jamie’s ability to calm her, soothe her, mend her, but she leans into it. Jamie seems happy these days, as happy as Dani, and that makes her wonder if it’s mutual, this mending. 

She thinks so. She really, really hopes so. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This all came out of an Anon prompt in the comments: "Grinding" 
> 
> It built the shell of this story around it like a Cargo cult. 
> 
> So Anon - I've now done your grinding AND your strap-on fics. 
> 
> See what happens when you comment folx! Things HAPPEN


	5. Every End Starts with a Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rated M NSFW 
> 
> In which a future is made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, Thanks for coming along on this lil journey with me. I had a blast. I will probably miss this iteration of them and throw in an epilogue at some point but I am promising nothing. Sorry the last chapter took me a few days. 
> 
> Secondly, Thank you for all your LOVELY comments. They seriously make my day. 
> 
> Small Editing note: I've gone back and changed Eddie's name back to what it was supposed to be. Don't know why I switched it up but I got all itchy so if anyone's wondering, he's back to being O'Mara. 
> 
> Hang in there for some fluffy, FLUFFY smut and love. 
> 
> Unbeta'd - edited only by me, and is probably more full of errors than the US Congress.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  That’s how it usually goes. This year though, the change is in the air and Dani can taste it. 

Life swirls around Dani like an autumn wind, whipping up leaves and spiraling them away from touch. They buckle down, determined to make something of their last year. Even Jamie does homework, uncharacteristically influenced by Dani’s refusal to make out on the bed  until they’re both finished . 

In March, Dani makes a decision. She makes it by herself, and talks to no one about it. She feels something close to exhilaration when she slips the envelope into the post box and hears it drop. This, this thing she is making, is all her own. She has put thought into it, deep thought, and lots of research. She has weighed her options, pros and cons, and now, now it is done. 

She goes to Jamie’s house, instead of going home, and spends the afternoon making her squirm on the bed.  If she thinks too much about the unknown, she’ll go crazy. Instead, she just indulges in the thing that keeps her sane. She’s fascinated with Jamie’s abs, the softness of the skin on her stomach, and the way that the muscles ripple under her touch. She likes kissing them. It drives Jamie crazy.  Dani spends the afternoon keeping herself sane by driving Jamie nuts.

They still haven’t moved beyond a certain point. It’s not like they don’t talk. Even about this stuff, Jamie is frankly open and happy to put into words the things that Dani has to stutter around. Dani is much bolder with her hands, her mouth, her actions – words still make her blush. Jamie checks in with her: ‘is this ok?’ ‘you like that huh?’ 

Sentences that keep her safe, warm and drive her arousal upwards. Sometimes Dani thinks Jamie could get her off with just words. 

Not that she’s done that again. She’s more aware of the boundaries now, her own edges, and they’re careful. Dani doesn’t know why she’s careful, but thinks that it’ll become clear in time. This thing, that Jamie and she have, it’s building itself, and she’s happy to follow the path that’s being laid down. She doesn’t need to push further in by herself yet.  In all the years that she’s had every contingency planned for, she’s oddly content to have no plan here at all. She just knows that at some point, she will know it’s time for more. 

***

She makes another decision, on a March afternoon. She stomps her way up the  O’Mara  front path and knocks on the door. Judy opens, hugs her, beckons her in. Eddie is home, as it turns out, and she climbs the  stairs to Eddies room like she has so many times before. Not for months though. 

Eddie’s door is ajar. Music, the radio Dani thinks, is playing softly and Eddie is humming along, off key. She knocks on the door frame. 

He turns, stares, the light reflecting off his glasses in circles for a second until he moves, runs a hand through is hair. Dani feels a n old fondness tug at her heart strings. She’s been considering this for some time and she’s come to the conclusion that Eddie is basically her brother.  That’s how she loves him, like a brother . He has a girlfriend now, she’s seen them around together. Abby, a short nerd group girl with spiky purple hair and a perpetually adoring look on her face when she looks at Eddie. He’s s eems happy when he’s with her, though the height difference is amusing , and frankly, they’re kind of adorable. Best of all, when Dani noticed, all she felt for him was happiness. It was time, she thought, to mend some fences. 

“What are you doing here?” 

Ok, so he’s her petulant brother. She rolls her eyes. 

“I’ve come to see if we can stop playing these dumb games and actually be friends again?” 

He looks at her, a bit confused,  definitely obstinate , still a bit peevish, but she sees a hint of something in there, something  she can work with . 

“Where’s Jamie,” he asks, slightly bitterly. 

“She’s working. Where’s Abby?” Counters Dani. 

“She’s… uh, she’s looking after her kid sister.” He has the sense to look abashed. He rubs the back of his head. 

“Look,” Dani says, thinking maybe she should throw him a bone. Eddie isn’t great at starting things after all. “We’ve known each other forever, and I miss you. I miss hanging out, and studying with you. Can’t we… can’t we just, you know, get over ourselves and be friends again?” 

He nods, nods at her in the way of Eddie, that way she knows is a filler agreement while the wheels turn in his skull. She waits for them to formulate some actual thoughts. 

“Is… would that be ok though? With Jamie I mean?”

Dani rolls her eyes. “Firstly, she’s my girlfriend, not my owner. Secondly, she trusts me. Why, is it going to be a problem for Abby?” 

Eddie gives her an ‘aw shucks’ look. “Um, maybe?” 

Dani walks into his room, like she has so many times, and sits on the edge of his bed. “Eddie. I’m gay. You can tell her that. It turns out, I’m really, really gay.” 

He closes his door then, turns back, and leans against his desk. “Really?” 

“Really, really,” she reiterates. 

“Oh.” 

He’s nodding. She lets the wheels turn a bit more. 

“Then… why…” 

She had anticipated this, if she ever got far enough into a conversation with him. “Because I love you. Eddie, we’ve been friends forever. You’re a good guy –  a great guy really.  I got those a bit confused ok.  I got those two things confused. And I know I hurt you. I really do, and I’m sorry. But I miss you, and I think you miss me.” 

She waits and waits for the wheels to turn before he nods. This time, it’s not a stop gap, and she relaxes. 

“So can we just… please? Be a bit more normal with each other?” 

He grins, kind of lopsided. “Yeah.  Uh. I might have to check with Abby though. ” 

  
Dani rolls her eyes, but ends up leaving his room with a spring in her step. He’d been kind enough to chat with her for a few minutes, even though she could still see the wheels turning behind those eyes, and she thinks maybe, she’s got Eddie back in her life. She’s happy to wait and see. 

Time moves on. It’s a complex year, full of promise and also, the heartbreaking expectation of endings. They agree to go to prom, even though Jamie makes enough snide comments about it. It’s not here yet, but they agree. Of course they’re going together. 

They study. They sleep.  They study more. Hannah, Dani and Eddie more than anyone, really knuckle down as the pressure builds. Owen keeps them alive with food. Jamie keeps Dani alive with hugs, kisses and the more than occasional make-out. 

Despite the external pressures, Dani still can’t keep her hands off Jamie. S ometimes  it’s slow and languid, sometimes frantic like they can’t get enough of each other. They can’t. And over the weeks, Dani builds an idea. On the foundations that she’s set, she builds an idea. 

The envelope arrives, about the same time everyone else is getting envelopes. She takes it to her room, sits with it, unopened in her hand. She trembles, turning it over and over, frightened to open it. She could take it to Jamie, or Eddie, but she doesn’t want to. This is hers, all hers. 

She slides a thumb under the glued down flap and opens it, pulls out the piece of paper and scans it. She rests it back on her lap. That’s it then. She has a plan. 

***

It’s all anyone can talk about, for the next week at school, as offers flood in from higher education across the country. Jamie grumbles about it. She’s not applied anywhere except to the local second hand car dealership to let her know when something appropriate comes in.  Dani ignores her. They wait on each other’s news, eager for their friends success. 

Hannah  gets her offer first. It turns out, she’s going to the Sorbonne. 

“Paris?” Dani exclaims. “I thought you were going to England?” 

“I got LSE also, but I decided on Paris.” 

They stare at her. It’s not like none of them knew how talented and smart she was, it’s just that none of them knew Paris was even an option. Owen throws his arm around her, insists there will be cake, celebration, his joy for Hannah positively written on every line in his skin. 

Later, Dani pulls her aside. “Paris?”  She’ll be leaving them, leaving Owen. Dani knows how much must have gone into this decision, but she still needs to ask. 

Hannah smiles, that gentle smile. “They have excellent culinary schools you know.” 

Dani stops, stalls, looks at her. 

“Things change. Plans change. It never hurts to have options.” 

And Dani understands. 

Owen is, as they all suspected, not going anywhere. He has snagged a lowly job at a decent restaurant nearby and declares his intention to work from the bottom up. None of them are fooled, but they add the celebration to the list. After all, Dani thinks, Paris does have some fine culinary schools and they will still be there in the future. 

Eddie is staying local, going State and doing Engineering. It suits him. Judy is delighted. 

They all ask, and she tells them she hasn’t had an offer yet. 

She’s in Jamie’s arms, sitting between her legs  and leaning back , lazing in the warm spring sun as they lounge on the grass. 

“Liar,” Jamie whispers in her ear.

Dani doesn’t know how she knows. Jamie always knows. She looks up at her, and runs a finger along her jaw. “Later OK?” she whispers. There’s something in Jamie’s eyes, and as well as she knows her, Jamie isn’t always readable. 

She has to go home first, after school. Jamie has work anyway. She kisses her goodbye before catching a lift home with Eddie. 

“Want me over later?” Jamie asks.

Dani shakes her head. “Mom’s home this evening. How about yours?” 

“Can’t promise it’ll be clean.” 

“Your room is always clean.” 

Jamie grins, lopsidedly. “I finish at nine.” 

A quick kiss, the n she’s gone. 

******

Her mother is home when she gets there. Dani finds her in the kitchen, coffee mug in her hand.  She tries to walk past quietly. 

“Danielle?” 

Dani stops, grimaces. Her full name is not something she likes, possibly because her mother is the only one who uses it. She moves into the kitchen fully, puts her bag  down by the door. 

“I was talking to Judy today.” 

Dani doesn’t move. She and her mother barely if ever talk, and this conversation feels like she’s being stalked by a monster from the shadows.  She doesn’t say anything, because she has a very strong sense that her participation in this conversation is unnecessary.

“She said Eddie got into Engineering.” There’s a pointed look that follows. 

“He did.” 

Dani’s mother knows they’ve broken up. Sniffed at her, mumbling something about lost chances and  stupid decisions when she found out. She’s also fairly sure that her mother has figured out her and Jamie, given how often Jamie stays over. Dani works off the principle that it’s better to leave a lot unsaid sometimes.  Now was definitely included in those times. Perhaps if she says nothing, she can leave sooner. 

“You should marry that boy.” 

Dani muses upon the fact that most of the things that Karen Clayton says should stay unsaid. This definitely being one of them. 

“We broke up ages ago Mom.” 

“Stupidest thing you’ve ever done.” Her mother turns around, to the counter, and Dani hears the rattling of a glass bottle on the edge of the mug. Rum or Vodka, she doesn’t know. She feels sick to her stomach. 

She’s grown now, an adult. There hasn’t been a bruise in eons, but the fear lingers, especially in treacherous waters like this. 

“Mom. I’m not marrying Eddie. He has a new girlfriend you know.” Distract and displace, distract and displace, then run. 

Her mother grunts. 

“I suppose you have some highbrow notion of going to college too.” Her tone makes it clear that the idea is laughable. 

Dani folds her hands together, and says with crystallized calm, “Yes. I’ve had a few acceptance letters. I’ve chosen one.” 

Her mother grunts again. “Think you’ve got a college fund waiting around, or that I’m going to pay for some fancy school?” The anger edging her voice now is palpable, and Dani feels sweat  begin to  gather at the nape of her neck. 

“I got a full ride. I won’t need your help.” Dani focuses her calm. _‘I don’t need you’_ she keeps unsaid. 

Her mother whips around now, mug sloshing. “Oh really? And where do you think you’re going?” 

Dani stands up. “The University of Vermont. They have an excellent Early Childhood and Primary Education syllabus.” 

Her mother snorts. “Teaching? You want to spend your life around other people’s brats?” 

Dani looks at her, really looks at her, and for the first time in a long time, just feels sorry for her. The fear edges away.

“Yes. I’m going to be a teacher.” Silence is the response, and she uses it as an opportunity to assume the conversation is over. She’s moves towards the door, grabbing her bag as she goes. “I’m staying at Jamie’s tonight.” 

She hears her mothers mug slam down on the counter as she turns away.  The bravado in Dani has made  too slow  to notice , and a hand grabs her arm, spinning her around. The grip is fierce, burning. 

“Says who?” Her mother is in her face now, red with anger, spittle gathering at the corner of her lips. Her bloodshot eyes and red splotches telling Dani that the mug has been refilled many times already today. For one second, one tiny second, Dani is nine again and petrified, until she calcifies back into her own body. 

She isn’t nine anymore.  She hasn’t been a child for a very long time. 

She reaches down, grabs her mother’s wrists and firmly pulls it away.  The mark on her arm is red, will be for awhile, but it won’t bruise. Dani knows her own skin by now. She knows now, that her mother will never bruise her again. 

“I’m eighteen mother. I do not need your permission to stay at someone’s house.” 

“You think I don’t know what you do to each other? What you are?” The venom laced words land on Dani’s skin, but she lets them brush off like snowflakes. It’s odd really, just how calm she feels.

“If you’re asking, then yes, Jamie and I are in love.” 

Her mother mottles purple and Dani shoulders her bag. She doesn’t take a step back, doesn’t flinch from the anger, and instead, takes a purposeful step into her mother’s space. 

“I’m staying at Jamie’s tonight Mom. There’s leftovers from last night in the fridge.” 

She turns on her heel, and walks to her room. It takes her a few minutes to pack a bag – enough clothes for a few nights actually - and then she walks down the stairs and out the door. Her mother, she assumes, is still in the kitchen, making love to a bottle of Captain Morgan. 

As she stands in the afternoon sun, contemplating Mrs Hoffman’s sprinkler across the road, she feels something lift off her shoulders. She figures that a lifetime of fear and conflicting emotions will never truly leave her, but she knows the battle she just won.  The fact that the battle was with herself doesn’t take away from the victory. 

She walks to Jamie’s house,  stopping off for supplies on the way. 

She’s early. She’s four hours early in fact, but Jamie’s older brother lets her in with a grunt. He’s only in his boxers, and Dani wants to slam a hand over her eyes, but he heads off back to bed and she lets herself into Jamie’s room.  Dumping her bag in the corner, she looks around. Jamie always keeps it a messy kind of neat. Her things are out, but it’s clean. The bed is rumpled, but made. One of Jamie’s flannel shirts is thrown carelessly over the chair at the desk. Dani reckons that the desk has never seen an ounce of homework done at it, but there are cartoons etched into the wooden surface with a ballpoint pen. 

Dani strips off her clothes, rifles through her bag and pulls out some pyjama pants. Then, a lmost as an afterthought , she throws Jamie’s flannel shirt on  instead of her own , leaving three buttons undone.  It smells like Jamie, and for lack of the better option, feels like she’s being hugged. She’d like to say that her encounter with her mother hasn’t rattled her, but she’d be lying. A deep breath tamps down the urge to cry over it, and she opts to get into Jamie’s bed instead. She hasn’t cried over her mother in years, and she isn’t going to now. Dani has long ago vowed not to spend that level of energy on this.  It’s like meditation, letting the argument seep away from her, the toxic miasma floating away. It’s a lot easier here, in Jamie’s space, where she feels safe. 

It’s warm in Jamie’s bed, in her room. She runs a hand across Jamie’s pillow, buries her face in it. She’s exhausted, by everything and nothing, and doesn’t realise when she drifts off to sleep. 

In fact, it’s only when she feels gentle fingers in her hair, stroking, and feels the bed dip, that she drifts back to some awareness. 

“This is a nice surprise.” 

Dani looks up sleepily. Jamie is hovering over her, hair in wet curls around her shoulders. Dani thinks she looks like an angel.  One who has just showered. 

“Sorry,” she mumbles groggily, half sitting up. 

“Alright by me, hardly going to complain about finding a beautiful girl in my bed now am I.” Jamie leans in for a gentle kiss, and Dani tastes peppermint. She winds a hand behind Jamie’s head, deepens the kiss, running her tongue across Jamie’s lips and drinking her slight moan. When they pull back she’s a little breathless, sleep fading away. 

“Have you had dinner? What time is it?” The habit of keeping Jamie fed is fairly ingrained by now. 

“Yeah, Joe got us Pizza. It’s just gone ten.” Jamie moves more firmly onto the bed, sitting up against the headboard and pulls Dani to her. “In my bed, stealing my clothes. Poppins, I’m starting to think you might like me.” 

  
Dani nuzzles into her, curling into her side and absorbing as much Jamie as she can. “I’d say sorry but I’m not actually.” 

“Me neither,” says Jamie with a grin. “Looks better on you than it does on me.” She trails a finger down to the first closed button, leaving a shiver along Dani’s skin. 

“Might look better on my bedroom floor though.” 

Dani smiles into her side. They lie, for a few minutes, in wonderful, warm togetherness before Jamie links their hands and lifts them to her mouth, kissing her knuckles. 

“So, are you going to tell me?” 

Dani looks up at her. Once again, Jamie’s eyes are full of something but it’s inscrutable. 

Dani sits up, crosses her legs and pulls Jamie’s hand back into hers. 

“I got an offer; full ride Scholarship.” 

Jamie grins, pulls her in by the back of her head and kisses her resoundingly. “Of course you did.  You’re brilliant. Where? ”  Jamie looks delighted for her, supportive as always. 

Dani pulls back. “It’s in Vermont.” 

“Blimey. That’s a long way.” 

  
Dani supposes that it is. She sighs. “I accepted it.”  She doesn’t know how Jamie will feel about this, because it  _is_ a long way away. Half a country away. 

“Good.” 

  
Dani looks up, bites her lip, contemplates Jamie’s very deliberate last word. 

“I mean it Dan. You need to get out of here, out of this town.” 

_ Away from your mother _ is what she doesn’t say, but Dani knows she means. 

Dani tilts her head to the side and looks at her. She  also knows, absolutely knows, that Jamie would never ask her to stay. Jamie will, resolutely, never say anything she thinks will stand in Dani’s way. She also suspects that any conversation about what that may mean for them will be shelved for as long as they can get away with it.  It doesn’t matter though. 

She has a plan. 

“I also took a year deferment.” 

Jamie is looking at her, suddenly perplexed. 

“Why?” 

Dani squeezes their fingers  and takes a deep breath. “I want to come with you  on your trip .” 

There is a moment, hanging in the air, like a raindrop caught in the sunlight. 

“Dani…” 

Dani cuts her off. 

“Hear me out, ok? I’ve been thinking about this. I want this, I want to come with you. I figure, if it’s good, it’s good. We’ll have a great time. We can go anywhere we want and then, you know, make our way towards Vermont and see from there. And if… if it doesn’t go well, then I’ll head to Vermont early and get a job, put away some money. And…” her breath runs out and she runs her thumb across Jamie’s knuckles. “I don’t want to get in your way, but it’s what I want. If it’s what you want. If you’ll have me?” 

Jamie’s eyes are sparkling, like someone just gifted her a miracle. She cups Dani’s face with both hands, brushing her thumbs over arching cheekbones. “Yeah, yeah I think I’ll have you.” 

Dani doesn’t even realise she’s crying until they pull back from the snotty, messy, tear infused kiss that’s possibly the best she’s ever had. Jamie brushes them off her skin gently and Dani launches herself into Jamie’s arms, knocking them back on the bed. 

They wrestle playfully for a minute until Jamie rolls them over, propping herself up on one elbow and looking down at Dani with love filled eyes. “I feel like all my dreams just came true.  Are you sure? Like, really sure? ” 

Dani laughs. “Yes, definitely absolutely sure.” 

She leans against Jamie’s, and then they move back to their usual position, Dani’s head on Jamie’s shoulder. If they’re not lying like this, it’s Jamie’s head in her lap, with Dani’s fingers coming 

“Dani?”

“Mmmm” 

“What do you mean ‘doesn’t go well’?”

Dani slips her hand under Jamie’s tank top and gently moves  it in circles. “You might get sick of me.” 

Jamie laughs. “Yeah. Poppins, I haven’t gotten sick of you in six years. You reckon’ this is going to do it?” 

“We’ll be together all the time though. No escape from a moving vehicle.” 

“Yeah. And we’ll probably argue. And make up. Best bit of arguing the making up.” Jamie tucks her fingers just inside the waistband of Dani’s pyjamas, making her shiver. “And we’ll laugh and all the other things that go with being together. Can’t see myself getting sick of you though.” 

Dani thinks: It’s enough. It’s enough to have that shining hope on the horizon and go with it. She likes having back up plans, they’ve always kept her safe, so she’s built a fail-safe into this one. Not just for her though, for Jamie too. But, lying here with their fingers gently stroking and the warmth encompassing her, she doesn’t for a second really think they’ll use it. 

They snuggle in deeper. They can talk more later, plan more later. For now, they both seem to be happy basking in the joy of possibility. The joy of a future. 

“I assume, as you’re dressed for bed, you’re staying the night?” Jamie’s hands scratch gently at the hair at the base of her skull, where she knows it will make Dani melt. 

Dani nods. “Is it OK if I stay here a couple of nights?” 

Jamie cocks an eyebrow. “Always. Everything OK?”  They don’t normally get to string nights together and usually, they stay at Dani’s. Especially since it’s a Wednesday and not the weekend. 

“Had an argument with Mom, kinda don’t wanna go back.” 

Jamie kisses her forehead. “Of course. Mi casa es su casa.” 

Jamie eases down the bed so they’re lying side by side, the ir legs moving almost without thought to tangle with each other. She traces her fingers down Dani’s cheeks, eyes darting across her face, love written in every glance. They move lower, down Dani’s arms, legs, across her. It is then that Dani realises that Jamie is looking for a bruise. 

She puts a finger under Jamie’s chin and tilts her face back up. “Just an argument. I left.” She runs a thumb over Jamie’s lips. “She can be drunk and alone for awhile.” 

Jamie nods, kissing her  lightly on the lips, then the nose and the cheeks, her forehead and then ever so gently, her eyelids. “More Dani for me. Can’t complain.” 

“All the Dani you want.” 

“Is that so?” Jamie wiggles her eyebrows and Dani laughs ever so softly. 

Here, in the soft light, she feels that sensation of peace wash over her again. The blanket of love so warm, so strong, so all encompassing, that it feels like a benediction. There is nothing suffocating or oppressive about where she lies. It’s more than she ever hoped she could feel. Now she knows. Yes, Jamie can have all the Dani she wants. 

Reaching down, Dani slowly undoes each button of the shirt she’s wearing, Jamie’s shirt. Each button pop is deliberate, and she watches Jamie’s face as Jamie watches Dani’s fingers, until each button is undone, shirt edges still together but now showing a strip of pale, alabaster skin from her throat to her hips. 

Jamie’s swallow is audible. “Dani…” 

She takes Jamie’s hand, brings it to her mouth, kisses the palm gently, reverently, and then places it on her sternum. “You can touch me.” 

It’s like watching Jamie unwrap the most precious gift imaginable, as she rolls Dani on to her back and slowly parts the fabric. Dani’s mouth is dry, and her breath is hitching, but she doesn’t move. Jamie trails the back of her fingers over the rise of Dani’s breastbone, down to her navel and then back up again, her breathing shallow as the fully moves aside the remaining shirt. She eases it off Dani’s shoulders, kissing each one, and helps her shuck it to the side before laying her back down again. 

“Jesus you’re beautiful.” 

Dani is torn then, between wanting to move too, wanting to touch and feel, and being caught in the awestruck gaze of Jamie Taylor, who is looking at her with pure love in her eyes. She tugs lightly at the edge of Jamie’s tank until she gets the message and whips it off. 

It’s like a staring contest that Dani doesn’t care if she wins or loses because Christ on a Bicycle, Jamie is gorgeous. And topless. Dani lifts a hand, gently cupping Jamie’s left breast, circling an already erect nipple with her thumb, glorying in the breathy moan. 

She gives her own gasp of joy, pure sensation, when Jamie lowers herself, hot, soft skin on skin for the first time. Dani’s breath is ragged now, as Jamie gently presses their foreheads together. They kiss, hot and languid, no need to rush. Jamie’s tongue finds her own, finds her lips, finds her teeth, finds her pulse point, her ear. Jamie’s teeth scrape, and Dani’s hips jerk. She reaches down, finds Jamie’s boxer shorts,  pushes on the edge making her wants known. 

J amie does not hesitate. 

They move apart, pants kicked off, underwear shed, until they come back together, tangling, melding. The feel of Jamie’s thigh between her own makes Dani gasp, buck. Jamie’s mouth is back on her neck then, tracing down, across the swell of her breast. She uses her tongue, lips, teeth and then whole mouth and Dani can only rake her nails gently across Jamie’s back in response. She can feel Jamie on her own thigh, a slick wetness that makes her whimper. Her hands move restlessly, seeking out skin and paths, across the swell of Jamie’s hips, ass, down her thighs and back up as Jamie’s mouth creates maelstroms of sensation. 

It’s not fast or torrid, not uncontrolled or frantic. It’s deliberate and heady, intoxicating. Dani rolls her hips,  Jamie follows. Every touch is purposeful, and every time Jamie looks into her eyes, she knows there’s the unspoken truth: She is safe here. Safe to call a halt or safe to continue. 

Dani has no uncertainties whatsoever. 

Dani has never been religious, but she thinks that this may be as close to worship as she gets. They can’t stop moving together, every brush a torture and a blessing. Her fingers trace maps on Jamie’s skin, tracing out familiar scars and unfamiliar landscape. She relishes Jamie’s gasps and trembling, learns the taste of her shoulder, her sternum. When Jamie’s fingers find her she whimpers, ready to beg, but Jamie is already there, already crooning in her ear,  whispering words of love and heat and promise, and all she can do is clutch. 

When Jamie is finally, finally inside her, she thinks she might be able to die now. 

Only there’s too much building inside her  to die . She moves hungrily, begging for more kisses, pushing her hips. Jamie is moving so carefully, she knows, trying not to hurt her. She doesn’t want her to be so careful, she won’t break. She wants Jamie to take her, own her, break her apart.  She grasps at her, moving faster, urging her, Jamie follows. 

When Jamie’s thumb moves on her, the pleasure swells, and she grips the sheets, Jamie’s back, her pillow, anything to keep from expiring under this tsunami. When Jamie curls her fingers, she’s lost. 

If coming apart on Jamie’s thigh had been a revelation, this was the whole damn  Bible . 

When it’s over, Dani finds Jamie gently withdrawing and has to stop herself from clenching her thighs to keep her inside. Jamie is still over her, sweat slick and trembling, her mouth dropping light kisses on Dani’s shoulders, collar bones, chin, jawline. 

“Ok?” 

Dani clutches at her harder, pulling Jamie down, wanting to be pressed into the bed.  She cannot find the words to explain how amazing she feels, so instead she just she whispers back “ more than.” Her fingers trail a line from the nape of Jamie’s neck, where the curls of hair are so soft, and so sweet, all the way down her spine to the base, and she loves the way it makes her shiver.  She melts a little further into the embrace. 

Except. 

Jamie is moving on her thigh. It’s subtle, and Dani has a feeling that it’s instinctive, rather than deliberate, but fuck, Jamie is moving on her thigh. Better yet, Jamie is wet on her thigh and she can feel it. 

She did that. She made that happen to Jamie. 

A blush of pride flows through her, followed with absolute determination.  It takes little effort to flip Jamie over, but it does cause a surprised squeak to emanate, which makes Dani  gring . She slides herself between Jamie’s legs, delighted at her own lack of self-consciousness. 

Jamie is so beautiful right now, splayed out beneath her, that it’s impossible not to kiss her. She takes her time, until Jamie’s kiss bitten lips are almost bruised, slightly swollen and her eyes are bright with need. Dani moves against her, hips in a rhythm that’s carnal, known, and unbelievably hot in its effects. 

Jamie arching back, moaning. Jamie, grabbing Dani’s hand, bringing it to her breast. The way Jamie pants and whimpers when she tastes one, and then the other of those breasts, using her tongue, and then her teeth. The way Jamie utters a single word, “please”, when Dani’s hand runs down her stomach, between her legs and then hesitates. 

“Baby, please.” It’s enough to make her move again, her head on fire at the plea. 

Jamie is so open for her, wet and willing, Dani feels like she might cry. Instead she takes the time to learn. It’s more familiar than she anticipated, easier to find her way. What she’s learning is Jamie. How Jamie likes it when she moves her fingers just so. How Jamie can’t hold back her noises when Dani slowly amps up her rhythm. 

How Jamie  eventually  howls her orgasm into a pillow, clenching around Dani’s fingers and bucking her hips, Dani’s name a chant on her lips. 

And how immediately after, she’s grabbing for Dani, hauling her into her arms and clutching at her, welding them together as their hearts slowly calm and their bodies cool. 

Dani is so utterly content to just lie here, warm and safe in Jamie’s arms. She’s rather proud of the fact that it takes Jamie some time to move, but that when she does, it’s to kiss Dani on the nose and then look at her with that look she has that takes Dani’s breath away. 

“I love you,” Jamie whispers. 

Dani runs a finger across Jamie’s lips, aware that any moment now she may dissolve from an excess of happiness. “I love you too.” 

She would have been willing to lie here all night, with nothing between them but love, except that after awhile Jamie grabs their clothes and mutters something about the other people in the house. Jamie’s father isn’t likely to come in, but her younger brother might, so Dani concedes the point. 

They fall asleep facing each other, legs tangled and arms clutching. Dani knows she’ll move in the night, but her last conscious thought is that she doesn’t want to, hopes she doesn’t, because the first thing she wants to see when she wakes up is Jamie’s face. 

Deep down, she knows that people will scoff at the idea you can meet your soulmate when you’re twelve. Lying here, in the most blissful calm she’s ever known, Dani thinks that maybe it’s because those people have never met their soulmate. Because she remembers a day, so many years ago, looking back across asphalt at the gangly girl in her dirty overalls and thinking that maybe, just maybe, there was something like fate after all. 

And all this, was just inevitable. 


End file.
